Ch.223On Being Forgotten (8)

“Resisting fate and living on, or being broken while resisting fate…”

A voice cutting through the dawn.

The old man’s eyes gleamed faintly.

It was a sunken resonance.

“Between the two, which do you think is more valuable?”

A sudden question.

Silence wrapped around them for a moment.

The children tilted their heads, seemingly not understanding what was going on.

Since the question came so abruptly, they probably couldn’t grasp its intention.

Even in this situation, the headmaster’s gaze remained fixed on one person.

None other than Lezia, the protagonist of the prophecy.

“What…?”

The pilot showed signs of confusion, just like her companions.

But the old man’s eyes never retreated.

He sat silently, as if waiting for an answer.

Lezia hesitated for a moment.

‘What is this…?’

She couldn’t understand the headmaster’s intention.

Only the silence wrapping around them. The calm gaze.

It was as if… he was hoping for something from her.

Not just the old man, but it felt like the entire world and all the stars surrounding her were hoping for something.

It might have been a somewhat foolish sentiment, but the girl clearly felt a pulsation.

Deep within her being. There was a resonance originating from there.

Her heart kept stirring.

-Ju■ Sna■■s.

Her eyes burned hot.

Her pale pink lips felt like they were on fire, and her heart ached as if pierced by an awl.

Again. The sense of loss that had been consistently tormenting the children for the past few days.

Lezia unconsciously clutched her chest tightly.

In her ears, an unfading longing flickered.

The faint traces that remained were like ink smudged on fingertips.

-I came to find a friend.

Whose voice was that?

There was no way to know.

Only tears welled up.

Without knowing why, the girl wiped away her blurring vision.

It wasn’t just her. The companions standing beside her were the same.

All of them were immersed in some kind of surge of emotion, with transparent water scales covering their pupils.

Between tightly bitten lips, sobs were held back.

-Miss Lezia.

-Being alone is the same even among people.

She felt lonely.

It felt like she had forgotten something important.

But not knowing what it was.

Only being able to fill this insufferable emptiness with collapse.

The pilot hunched her shoulders. Her green eyes trembled.

However, the reason she didn’t take a step back despite all this…

-I loved Miss ■■■ too.

She had an intuition.

That if she didn’t answer this question, she would regret it for the rest of her life.

Courage from somewhere. A core supporting her to not back down.

Though born with a naturally fragile disposition, that didn’t determine the girl’s weakness.

The daily life she had diligently walked through guided the pilot and showed her a wider night sky.

Lezia was clearly flying.

“I…”

She no longer wandered the dawn desert.

The hand that someone had pulled was now reaching toward fate.

The pilot faced the old blue eyes.

-It’s okay.

-I’ll be by Miss Le■■’s side.

The headmaster asked.

A life that doesn’t resist fate and continues on.

Or a life that breaks while resisting fate.

Between these two lives, which did she think was more valuable?

The former was a confession about survival, and the latter was the result of burning out.

The answer was both meaningless and at the same time, like the meaning to be written in all blank spaces.

“”…””

The girl collided like an echo in the silence.

Everyone’s gaze turned to the pilot’s lips.

Though the soft resonance trembled, there was no breaking in it.

Lezia continued her answer.

“I-“

After that.

A voice that cut through the stillness with straightness.

The answer sheet the girl wrote down resonated clearly to everyone.

“……”

After hearing Lezia’s answer, the headmaster was silent for a moment.

Perhaps his expectations had been off.

Or conversely, maybe it matched his expectations perfectly.

The old man only sank quietly in the surging waves.

Soon, the prophet muttered.

“…I see.”

Breaking the deep white waves he had been swimming in.

If footprints remain even in an empty heart.

Step by step-

“That is your answer.”

Just as the girl had wandered the desert,

The old man had his own desert.

A pair of dawns.

Softening waveforms.

Even to a neatly arranged life, something remained,

Even a slightly bowed head would eventually tilt toward the light.

Like the night sky of some time,

The cloudy pupils are soaked in color.

The ascetic confesses as if in prayer.

“So, I will also tell you my choice.”

The old man closes his eyes.

Wrinkled skin covers the blue pupils, and the night fog subsides.

Moreover, light begins to flicker at the headmaster’s fingertips.

Between slightly parted lips, reminiscence dwells.

“I speak before the Book.”

The shepherd who led the night stream lost his star,

Scratching the undergrowth painted with ink,

The mourning caught between his fingernails swarms like sediment.

The principle, or excuse, that dolls do not shed tears.

To that, the child falls like dawn, and nothing remains for the sheep.

Only like a chaotic world.

Do you commemorate that bloodshot depth?

Unlike you, the sheep do not sleep.

“Young dawns.”

The prophet calls the children.

He whispers so they won’t wither.

“You shall walk opposite from the world, but never turn your back.”

Whoosh-!

Originating from his fingertips, a brilliant light soon swept in all directions.

It was pure white, contrasting with a certain boy’s pitch black.

That light fluttered like a curtain and was as brilliant as a morning bathed in light.

The brightness that couldn’t be described merely as white exploded from the old man’s hands.

It slowly broke through the firmly closed night.

“Night that hides the stars.”

The small crack soon extends to the night sky.

If the serpent’s power was [Lies], the old man’s power was [Truth].

After all, the concept that penetrates all changes is the straightforward unchanging truth.

The light placed in opposition pierces the reverse scale.

It thrusts a sword into the heart of falsehood.

“Break.”

Crash-!

Immediately after, a sound like breaking glass rang out.

Cracks and lines densely coloring the space above.

Against such a background, precepts and laws mix chaotically as if dancing.

The creeping dawn removes all the lies that had been placed upon the world.

It releases the sealed memories and points to the path that should have been taken originally.

The children all let out exclamations.

“Ah…”

What appeared in their vision was a beautiful night sky.

Stars densely embroidered.

Radiance fluttering with the beat of wings.

Memories flood their minds.

The seal was shattered into pieces.

-■■ S■■ke■.

The scattered letters are combined one by one.

As if finding their own places.

-■■ Sne■kers.

Memories fitting together like a puzzle.

The sense of loss crumbles.

And the remaining space is filled with a sense of fulfillment.

A warmth that was forgotten for a moment embraces the heart.

-■da Sne■kers.

Emotions surging up.

Eyelids turned red.

Hot tears ran down the children’s cheeks.

Now they could answer about the sadness they had been questioning all along.

-Judas Snakus.

A name.

About the name the world had forgotten.

Someone’s lips murmur.

“…Judas.”

That was the moment of triggering.

A whisper that ignites the suppressed longing.

Small sobs soon lead to wailing.

The scenery outside the window was still dawn.

“Ah.”

The world no longer forgot the boy.

***

A few hours later.

After the long dawn had passed, soon approaching morning.

The prophet was left alone in the empty dormitory.

The settled silence flows like a stream in the season.

“……”

Blue eyes gazing intently.

At the end of his gaze was the place that had been bustling with presence until recently.

As if a familiar dawn was accompanying him. The old man chewed on the silence.

A letter held in his hand remained like a rose.

-Judas.

The dormitory the children had left.

As soon as they regained their memories, they rushed out.

It was obvious where their urgent steps were headed without asking.

The faintly spreading light in his eyes captures the constellation.

‘They’ve gone to the serpent.’

The liar who was destined to be forgotten alone.

However, the straightforward truth illuminated the dawn like a lamp.

The boy would no longer have loneliness left.

‘Judas,’

Both the world’s sacrificial lamb and the old man’s only friend.

The headmaster sat by the window where starlight fully entered.

In his calm breath, he recollects something.

Perhaps it was memories of his boyhood.

‘My calling is done.’

Because someone had to bear the burden.

The old man simply placed his existence on that total amount in place of his friend.

Gaston ascended to the altar of sacrifice. He offered himself with reverence.

In his neatly folded hands and the single letter, not even a trace of regret remained.

Like a pilgrim finishing a long journey.

“…Is it the end?”

A self-talk uttered for no reason.

It might have been lingering attachment.

After this night, his voice would no longer remain in the world.

Gaston quietly looks down at his hands. Hands turning to dust and scattering.

The old man’s existence was collapsing in real-time.

‘A wearisome life.’

It was the price for twisting fate.

Having pulled back onto the stage a name that should have been forgotten.

The distorted causality, and the world’s karma weighing down on the prophet.

He feels the consciousness he barely held slipping away, and his essence fading.

Beyond the window, light shines through the cleared dawn.

‘The world is so quiet.’

The old man disappearing.

Even the life he had desperately held onto was fading.

Gaston gently covers his eyelids.

‘Selena…’

What filled a corner of his mind was none other than his disciple.

About the drunkard who had left the nest.

The only family he had kept by his side.

A child who was like a daughter to the old man.

‘She’ll be fine.’

The headmaster gently puts aside his worries.

Along with a few words of relief.

There was no need to worry.

Even without him now, there would be many people to stay by her side.

She had built her own nest. Selena was no longer alone.

It felt like he could leave without any lingering attachments.

“……”

Stars still lived in the window.

A scenery reminiscent of a time.

When the old man was a boy, the moment he was chosen by the world.

It looked exactly like the night sky full of blue dawn.

From then on, the boy who had been a puppet of fate all along reached out for the first and last time.

Everything was for his friend.

The karma accumulated bit by bit.

The long-awaited wish of a lifetime.

The resonance was clear in his ears.

-Headmaster… I’ll entrust a different future to you.

A scene glimpsed in a prophecy once.

The boy turning his back alone, dragging his tattered body.

This time, he didn’t let such a future come to pass.

The headmaster bore all the karma, so the prophecy went perfectly astray.

The headmaster whispers in the flowing stream and falling stars.

His last voice.

“My friend.”

Sunlight dawning beyond the horizon.

A voice ending at dawn.

“Please… I entrust the future ahead to you.”

The next moment, sunlight vividly coloring.

The incoming radiance illuminates the window side.

However, Gaston Gallimar was no longer there.

On the dusty windowsill, only a neatly folded letter remained.

[To Dear Pinocchio]

Along with a greeting written in a firm handwriting.